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Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

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Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#191

Post by brailsafe »

closeparen wrote: post #100
tortarga wrote: post #63

As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .

There are some very nice older suburbs, with much higher densities than would be thought of as suburban today, that provision parking for every home. The venerable alley is basically an accommodation for cars, but a much more humane one. The sweet spot seems to be about 1920-1940.

Yep, you're absolutely right. The parent's youtube suggestion has a video on this too, called streetcar suburbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#192

Post by forgotmyoldname »

dymk wrote: post #182
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. I tried to find the tweet, but it was succinctly put ~"it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars, but people in LA have no choice but to own a car, it's not love, it is necessity". In every city that has made a concerted effort to accommodate all modes of transport, driving as a percentage has gone down. "build it and they will come" is better suited to transport than it ever was to SaaS. It is easy to c…

“It’s said that” is not the same as “polls show” and then linking to a source LA is also cherry picked to be one of the worst places for cars. It’s legendary for its traffic. Writing in from the PNW where I wouldn’t trade my car, and the freedom it gives me and my friends and my dogs to travel, for anything.

I lived in the PNW and loved that I could take a bus just about anywhere. It was a big draw for me.

If it was a hellscape dominated by 26 lane highways and hours of traffic to get anywhere like many parts of the US, I never would've bothered moving there.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#193

Post by BrianHenryIE »

dymk wrote: post #182
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. I tried to find the tweet, but it was succinctly put ~"it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars, but people in LA have no choice but to own a car, it's not love, it is necessity". In every city that has made a concerted effort to accommodate all modes of transport, driving as a percentage has gone down. "build it and they will come" is better suited to transport than it ever was to SaaS. It is easy to c…

“It’s said that” is not the same as “polls show” and then linking to a source LA is also cherry picked to be one of the worst places for cars. It’s legendary for its traffic. Writing in from the PNW where I wouldn’t trade my car, and the freedom it gives me and my friends and my dogs to travel, for anything.

I gotta hand it to you, in response I searched DuckDuckGo for:

"people in los angeles love their cars"

and the top result was

"People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars"

Hypothetically, if one person had to die every time you used your car (for your dogs to travel or whatever) would you stop using your car? How about if it were one person for every 1000 journeys. What if every single journey you made in your car had a very small and undeniable contribution to the deaths of people you live around, would you stop then?

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#194

Post by chromatin »

beowulfey wrote: post #189

Seems a lot of these comments are thinking “nice” refers to the livable sense, but the article is specifically referencing aesthetics. And then makes the argument that modern neighborhoods don’t look pleasing because there is no consistency between neighboring houses. I don’t buy this at all. There are many tracts of suburban (USA) houses where every house looks consistent and similar, with subtle differences in colo…

I think your observation is spot on. When I travel in the older parts of cities, I like to point out to my children the details in brickwork that we just don’t see in newer structures.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#195

Post by handrous »

mc32 wrote: post #132
bombcar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just see standard developments - anything more specific? Heh found a trailer park.

To me a place like hidden glen north is odd. It's a tract surrounded by soundwalls and has few exits from the development, whereas in normal developments you have intersections with all streets. This kind of development follows the thoroughfare model where smaller streets feed larger streets which feed boulevards/expressways which feed freeways. They are built in such a way the actual city neighborhood is disconnecte…

> It's a tract surrounded by soundwalls and has few exits from the development, whereas in normal developments you have intersections with all streets.

I'm not sure any development built after about 1975 in my midwestern metro area isn't like this, including the sound walls if they're next to an interstate or major highway.

My neighborhood, with... oh, I dunno 150houses? At least a dozen named-and-numbered streets present in it? It has two exits. Get this: one of those can only be entered if you're going a particular direction on the road it intersects, because there's an unbroken median curb there. So it's more like 1.5 entrances.

Our neighborhood before this one? Two exits (it's bigger than this neighborhood and still developing, so I expect it'll get a third pretty soon).

Our neighborhood before that? One exit. One. technically two, but the second was marked "dead end" (it wasn't, really, but that was probably still the right thing to label it) and took you on a weird barely-developed road with no other intersecting roads, which looped you back up to the same highway the the neighborhood's other route would have put you on, so even for people who lived right by the connection to that road, leaving the normal way was faster.

The general rule seems to be: no more than one exit on any major road bounding the neighborhood. This means neighborhoods that are right next to each other can be slow to travel between on foot or by bike, without cutting through yards.

> They are built in such a way the actual city neighborhood is disconnected from its surroundings and makes transit by anything other than car difficult -buses don't go in, and biking is fraught -all relatively close to the downtown area.

Some folks for whom keeping a working car around isn't a big deal, consider it a feature that their neighborhoods are hard to reach by a combination of public transit and foot. Crime rates go up and the homeless population shoots up, they say, when they add a bus stop next to your neighborhood. Time to sell before the market drops if you see them working on a new bus stop in walking distance of your house, they say. (seriously, this is straight from several people I know, not something I'm inventing or guessing at)

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#196

Post by rsj_hn »

advael wrote: post #186
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually way more disposable income today than even 100 years ago. We just spend it on things that didn't exist before like car insurance and iPhones.

What do you consider "disposable income"? Car insurance is legally mandatory if you drive a car. If your income is predicated on being able to commute by car (as it is for many Americans, though hopefully a trend toward remote work will ameliorate this somewhat) then your insurance is no more optional than your gas. People also talk about smartphones as though they're a luxury item, but for most intents and purposes…

"Disposable income" is not some vague philosophical term that we have to haggle over. It simply means income minus taxes paid to government.

Please please don't redefine economic terms to suit your intuitive belief about what a word "should" mean because you are wading into an area where you don't know the agreed upon terminology. That impedes communication.

If you want to refer to income after paying necessities, then this is "discretionary income".

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#197

Post by phonypc »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #145
xibalba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

Well said. Another angle is the race angle. Most people advocating for lesser cars are young, healthy, rich and white. Healthy enough to not use cars and rich enough to live near work. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-cycl... The group that talks about systemic racism is perpetuating it.

That article is about cycling as a sport. I'd bet if you look at cycling as a method of regular transportation, it would skew heavily non-white and lower income. Owning a car is expensive.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#198

Post by brailsafe »

xibalba wrote: post #129
tortarga wrote: post #63

As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

The U.S already did this, starting in the 40s-50s up till now, and it's horrific. The idea of building infrastructure around everyone having a massively expensive and wasteful machine to get anywhere they want as fast as possible all the time (and without any energy expenditure) makes for a hellscape. It's fine to like and own cars, but cars should be de-prioritized in planning and infrastructure considerations because it makes everything worse for everyone, including car owners. Might as well design cities around providing everyone with personal planes at this point.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#199

Post by dymk »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #193
dymk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It’s said that” is not the same as “polls show” and then linking to a source LA is also cherry picked to be one of the worst places for cars. It’s legendary for its traffic. Writing in from the PNW where I wouldn’t trade my car, and the freedom it gives me and my friends and my dogs to travel, for anything.

I gotta hand it to you, in response I searched DuckDuckGo for: "people in los angeles love their cars" and the top result was "People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars" Hypothetically, if one person had to die every time you used your car (for your dogs to travel or whatever) would you stop using your car? How about if it were one person for every 1000 journeys. What if every single journey you made in you…

"People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars" is a headline meant to generate clicks, posted with no context, statistics, or discussion.

Are you a vegan? Hypothetically, how many people have to die due to the greenhouse gasses emitted due to your meat consumption? Have you ever served somebody an egg that didn't have a fully cooked yolk? Do you consume any single-use plastics? Do you use a compost toilet?

We could go on and on.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#200

Post by dymk »

forgotmyoldname wrote: post #192
dymk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It’s said that” is not the same as “polls show” and then linking to a source LA is also cherry picked to be one of the worst places for cars. It’s legendary for its traffic. Writing in from the PNW where I wouldn’t trade my car, and the freedom it gives me and my friends and my dogs to travel, for anything.

I lived in the PNW and loved that I could take a bus just about anywhere. It was a big draw for me. If it was a hellscape dominated by 26 lane highways and hours of traffic to get anywhere like many parts of the US, I never would've bothered moving there.

The whole of the PNW is not a city or specially designated hiking trail, and 99% of where you could go in the region was not accessible by bus routes.
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